


Pommel and Guard

by unsmilingchuck



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alec Hardy being a dad, Gen, Light Angst, Set Around s03e07, Slight Changes to U.K. Weapons Laws Because You Guys Really Didn't Give Me a Lot to Work With
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21925096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsmilingchuck/pseuds/unsmilingchuck
Summary: "Why do you even need all this stuff?”“It’s for Daisy,” says Hardy, picking up the box and then shoving it under his desk. “Have you found anything else we can use to keep Jim Atwood here or are we going to have to let him go?”“We haven’t found—“ she catches herself and then fixes him with another glare. “Oh no, you are not getting out of this that easily. What is Daisy supposed to do with that? It’s a bloody arsenal.”Alec Hardy is a hardened detective who deals with terrible crimes on an all-too-frequent basis. He is also, in his own words, a father, who worries about his teenage daughter.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Daisy Hardy, Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 34





	Pommel and Guard

**Author's Note:**

> A short piece looking at Hardy and Daisy's relationship towards the end of Series 3. It's fairly light but it does discuss/reference sexual assault. This is partly borne out of me writing back against the "aberration" speech in the last episode--I found it to be a bit...reductive. It's also borne of out me being deep in my Dad!Hardy feels.

When Miller knocks on Hardy’s office door, she has a large cardboard box in her arms and a look of flat irritation on her face.

“Sir?”

“Hm?” Hardy waves her in without really thinking, still preoccupied with Jim Atwood’s latest admission. He’s the best suspect they have so far, especially when it comes to linking the different cases together, but logically something just doesn’t click…

“Sir, why did you have your package sent to my house?” Miller’s voice snaps him out of his contemplation as she drops the box onto his desk, on top of old receipts and printed stills from CCTV cameras. It lands hard, rattles loudly.

“Well there’s no good place to put parcels at my house without the risk of them getting nicked, and I didn’t think ordering this to the station would be a good idea.” He frowns at the double layer of packing tape, one layer of which has already been cut through. “Miller, did you open my mail?” She stares him.

“I—of course I opened your mail!” Miller’s face a picture of indignation. “You sent it to my house! Why do you even need all this stuff?”

“It’s for Daisy,” says Hardy, picking up the box and then shoving it under his desk. “Have you found anything else we can use to keep Jim Atwood here or are we going to have to let him go?”

“We haven’t found—“ she catches herself and then fixes him with another glare. “Oh no, you are not getting out of this that easily. What is Daisy supposed to do with that? It’s a bloody arsenal.”

“Well not all of it, obviously. Just one or two pieces, whatever she’s comfortable with.” Hardy digs his fingertips into his temples, trying to stave off the migraine which has been creeping up on him since this case started. “Look, can we please get back to Jim Atwood? Chief Super is this close to scaling back our resources.”

“As soon as you promise not to use me as your P.O. box again.”

“Fine,” sighs Hardy, “I will not have anything else sent your house. Now, do we have to let Jim Atwood go?”

They do, of course. It’s another fruitless day with more questions than answers, frustrating enough that he almost doesn’t mind heading home early—or at least, earlier than he’s been leaving for the past few weeks. Daisy isn’t in the living room when he walks through the front door, and all of the lights are off, but there are a few pots and pans soaking in the sink. Her bedroom door is closed. Hardy goes to knock, juggling the awkward weight of the cardboard box, but the door swings open before he gets the chance.

Daisy looks surprised to see him there. It almost stings. He crushes it down before the hurt makes it to his face.

“You’re back early.” She’s holding a half-finished bowl of pasta. Behind her he sees textbooks and papers spread out on her bed, illuminated by her open laptop. Music is playing, quietly, something electronic and melancholy that he’s far too old to have ever heard of. He knows, of course, that when he works late Daisy usually comes home alone, but it’s something else to see it for himself. Her suitcases are still on floor, half-unpacked into piles of clothes and books. It almost reminds him of his hotel room, back when he had first arrived in Broadchurch—not empty, but not exactly lived-in either.

“I got you something,” Hardy says finally. “Or, several somethings I guess. Can I come in?”

Daisy opens the door a little wider and stands aside, letting Hardy into her bedroom. She pushes aside some of the papers on her bed, clearing space for the two of them to sit down with the box between them. The bowl of pasta ends up on the bedside table, next a blinking alarm clock that still hasn’t been reset.

Hardy peels back the tape on the box. “You said you didn’t really want to go back to school, because of…what happened. I thought something like this might make you feels better.”

Miller hadn’t really been exaggerating—the inside of the cardboard box does sort of look like an arsenal. Mostly there are small knives, tucked away into multitools with keychain attachments, but there are plenty of other more subtle self-defense tools mixed in. Hardy digs through the bits of metal and plastic, trying to ignore the fact the Daisy’s eyes have now gone rather round.

“This one—“ he holds up a pink metal cat face, “it’s kind of like brass knuckles, yeah? You put your fingers through his eye holes here and stick ‘em with the ear bits. Or maybe if you want something a bit sharper you could take a knife. I got a few of those, you can pick whichever one you like. Here—” Hardy drops the cat back into the box and digs out one of the bigger knives. “—give this one a try.”

Daisy doesn’t take the knife, but she does give it a very long look. He starts to wonder if this was perhaps not the best way to go about this. Before the silence can stretch out for too long Hardy drops the knife and goes back into the box, rooting around until his finds a round plastic button on the end of the key chain. He pulls it out carefully.

“This is supposed to be an alarm. I haven’t tried it, but the reviews said it would be loud. Could give it a test if you like, just maybe not here. Could go down to the beach, maybe. There’s also a dye spray somewhere in here if you want another, er, less aggressive option.”

Daisy doesn’t take the alarm either. “I don’t need a knife, dad, or an alarm, or anything. What’s going on?”

Hardy contemplates the box sitting between them. He doesn’t want to tell her about Aaron Mayford, not really. DC Harford had asked him to sign off on her writeup of the incident, and the particulars of Mayford’s little speech still make his skin crawl. Hardy’s not naïve, but he is still capable of disgust, and the proximity unnerves him. Then there’s the fact that the rapist from the Winterman case is starting to look like a serial rapist—a serial rapist who’s still on the loose somewhere out there. Two violent rapists within a few miles is probably just statistically average, but that doesn’t mean he has to like it. He wouldn’t ask Daisy to stay if he thought it was dangerous, but no place is ever completely safe.

Instead of any of that he just says: “You seemed worried. I thought this might make you….less worried.”

“Well it’s not. You’re just doing that thing again.” Daisy isn’t quite glaring at him, but it’s close. Her eyes are shining in the glow of her laptop screen.

“What thing?”

“That thing where you act all concerned but you don’t tell me what’s going on so I just get freaked out.”

“I’m not—“

“You said things would be different but this isn’t different. You’re just doing the same thing you always do. And it isn’t making me feel any better about staying here it just makes me feels worse because all you want to do is be distant and weird and—”

“Daisy—Dais, please,” He doesn’t want to beg. This is not how this conversation was supposed to go. “I’m not trying to scare you, I just want you to be safe.”

“Then tell me what’s going on for once! I told you what happened to me, didn’t I?”

She’s not wrong.

Hardy lets out a very long sigh, one he didn’t even realize he’d been holding. “Okay.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Hardy does his best to look her in the eye. “But this isn’t—it’s not public yet, alright? So you can’t tell anyone else what I’m about to tell you until we make a formal media statement. You can’t even tell them that I told you something. Promise?”

He waits for Daisy to roll her eyes or offer some sarcastic comment, but instead she just nods. “Promise.”

“I know that you know about our current case. We think that whoever the attacker was, it wasn’t his first. Nothing is certain, but given all the evidence at the moment it seems highly likely. I don’t think Broadchurch is a dangerous place, but I do think this man, whoever he is, is a dangerous man.” He pauses to check Daisy’s reaction, but she just waits for him to keep going. “You’re a smart kid, and I know you know how to take care of yourself, but I’m your father and it’s my job to worry about you. So I thought that, at least until we close this case, something like this might help both of us. Completely your choice.”

It’s not the whole truth—he’s breaking enough rules as it is with just this much of it—but it is truthful. He watches Daisy contemplate the half-unpacked suitcases on her bedroom floor. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that this job can make you paranoid, except for the fact that most days it just proves to you over and over again that you paranoia is perfectly rational. He know’s what it’s done to him—Miller’s comments about his wary cynicism have made that more than clear. Days like this, he wonders what it must be doing to his daughter.

“Okay,” she says finally. Just “okay”.

It feels like progress.

Hardy nudges the box towards her. “You sure you don’t want anything?”

Daisy looks back and forth for a moment, between him and the box, before finally reaching in and pulling out the cat keychain. He can’t suppress a small grin. For the first time in weeks, she matches him, smiling slightly as she clips the cat onto her keys. 

“Are you sure I’m allowed to bring this to school?” 

Hardy shrugs. “It’s a very nice cat-shaped keychain which you carry around ‘cause of how much you like cats. Don’t see how anyone could censure you for that.” He loops an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in for a hug, box half-crushed between. “And if any of your teachers starts giving you a hard time just have them call me and I’ll sort it out.” 

That startles a laugh out of her, for whatever reason. They stay like that for a few moments longer, until Daisy pulls back and nods towards the kitchen. 

“I don’t know if you want dinner but I put all the leftovers in the fridge if you want some.”

“Are you sure?” The guilt rears its head again, but Hardy does his best to push it back. “I saw all the pots and pans; you put a lot of work into that.”

“I’m sure.” Daisy reaches around him to gather up her pasta bowl. “I’ll just heat this up a bit and then we can eat together. Unless you have to go back?” There’s no judgement in the question, no double meaning or snide sarcasm. Something twinges in Hardy’s chest, prickly and warm.

“No. Not tonight.” 

Of course, the Winterman case still needs to be solved. He’s out the door before Daisy wakes up for school the next morning, and doesn’t get back until well after dark. He knows that if people keep coming out of the woodwork he’s going to be there through the weekend too. But that night after dinner the two of them crowd into the tiny kitchen and do the dishes together, Hardy scrubbing sauce stains out of pots and pan, Daisy drying and putting them away. They split a of pint of ice cream for dessert.

**Author's Note:**

> ...Which officially makes me three for three in terms of using food to signify repaired relationships at the end of fics. Go figure.
> 
> Like I said, this partly sprang from the "aberration" speech. On the whole I think the show deals sensitively with the issue of sexual assault, but it's impossible not to notice that this is, just barely, a "pre-#MeToo" show. It didn't connect all the different pieces in quite the way I was hoping it would, so this is me making those connections a bit more explicit.
> 
> Comments are a gift, and I treasure every one. I do my best to reply to all of them but sometimes it takes me a day or two.
> 
> Also, I have a newsletter, because I desperately want to be the kind of person who has a newsletter. It's primarily for letting people when I publish something, with some Opinions thrown in. You can sign up at [buttondown.email/unsmilingchuck](https://buttondown.email/unsmilingchuck).


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